Mysterion and Red Handed
by SnowStories
Summary: A continuation of Mysterion's, after "The Coon vs Coon and Friends". Mysterion is still helping the city, but has met a new hero, Red Handed. Who is she? And does she hold the answers that Mysterion has always needed? Note, I do not own any of the characters besides Red Handed - my O/C
1. A Helping Hand

Standing at the edge of the toy store's rooftop, with the wind blowing his cape to a satisfyingly badass level, is the town's only remaining super hero, left alone to protect the city that he semi-loves. The night is unusually quiet, but Mysterion doesn't mind. The silence gives him a chance to narrate.

"_I…am Mysterion, sworn protector of South Park, Colorado: my home town that I have lived in all of my life. I used to have others to help me: I belonged to an entire team of heroes, a team called Coon and Friends, but after the Coon turned evil and banished us all to the lost city of R'ley, and Cthulhu was stopped by a former Coon and Friends member all a few weeks ago, the game has gone stale, and the others have decided to stop playing. I am all that is left, but maybe that is for the best. Unlike the others, I actually do have a power. I am immortal; I cannot die."_

Movement in the alley beneath him catches his attention, and he watches as three sixth graders chases a stray dog, cornering the poor thing at the dead end. Laughing and throwing rocks, they abuse the stray, who's cowering as much as it possibly can.

Mysterion narrows his eyes. "Sixth graders; they've become even more of a problem since we got off for Christmas vacation. Just yesterday I had to report a few for loitering next to the park. Without the others to help, my hands are full every night. I may not want to admit it, but I need help."

Tired of the bullies' laughter, Mysterion makes a move to jump, but a blur of gray and red stops him. Stumbling backwards, he watches as a figure runs past, jumps, and lands in the alley, between the sixth graders and the dog.

Mysterion leans over the edge of the building and looks down, eyes let down in confusion.

Below kneels a red headed girl – no older than he was – with a smoky gray jacket and a matching skirt, and wearing a pair of blood red gloves. From above, he can't get a good look at her, but he watches as she stands up, flips her hair out of her face and faces the older kids.

"Leave the dog alone," she says. Points against her for the lack of a cool threat, but Mysterion is still impressed by her shear bravery.

"What, a little girl thinks she can tell us what to do?" calls one of the kids, and the other two laugh. Then the oldest one steps forward, his hands turning into fists. "Why don't you just beat it, before we beat you?" he says.

Her hands slip up to her hips. "Last chance," she warns, "before I make you guys leave."

Again, nothing cool, but now Mysterion starts to worry. "_What does she think she's doing?" _He asks himself, _"If she thinks they won't hurt her just because she's a girl…"_

The leader of the three boys smirks and steps forward, punching his left palm to show off how tough he is. He gets maybe five inches to her before she makes her move.

With a twist, the girl ducks, turns, and pulls out a short jump rope – one with black handles and a red rope. As she spins, the rope swings, hitting the boy squarely in the corner of his left eye. His hand goes to cover it, and tears start to swell. His lips tremble and suddenly he's running away, crying, with the other two cussing as they chase after him.

Mysterion has to force himself to close his mouth.

The girl turns to the dog, giving the stray a soft pet on the head. The dog licks her and runs off.

Mysterion jumps and lands behind her, closer to the wall. When he stands to face her, his cape wraps around him, shielding him from her.

"That was brave," he starts, "but very stupid. Who are you?"

The girl turns to him and Mysterion gets a good look at her. She's shorter than he is, and thin, with pale skin and dark eyes. She's wearing a black corset that ties in the front with white threads. The smoky gray jacket covers her, blending into the cheerleader like skirt that reaches her black shoes. Her face is hardly covered by an equally gray mask, a simple one with an elastic band holding it up. Her eyes have a light gray shadow on them, with mascara on the eyelashes. Her hair is a crimson red, pulled halfway back in a high bun, and mostly with dropped down in a long mess of a curly pony tail. Her matching red gloves wrap up her jump rope, clipping it to her hidden belt.

She winks at him.

"Red Handed, but you can call me Red, Mysterion," she rings and Mysterion again has to close his mouth. She was an absolute stranger to him. In a town as small as South Park, there was no way a girl like her can live here for more than a few months before he could see her around at school or on the streets, and that red hair was unmistakable.

"You know who I am?" he asks stupidly.

She smirks at him. "Of course I do. I saw the news a few weeks ago."

That's no surprise. Nearly half of Colorado, stretching as far as Denver even, saw him and his friends on the news, when they were hosting a bake sale to help the refugees in New Orleans.

"You shouldn't have attacked them. They could have hurt you."

Red Handed rolls her eyes and smirks. "Trust me, Mysterion. I can take care of myself," and with that, she turns and runs away.


	2. An Alliance

Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 2

That next day, Kenny McCormick had to force himself to wake up. He hadn't slept well last night – his parents were drunker than usual, and were arguing all night long – and he just knew he would fall asleep in class. Luckily, Garrison didn't usually care.

Snugged in his usual orange parka, his blond hair pressed against his head, and pushed down by his hood, he left the house without breakfast, ignoring his parents passed out on the couch. Pushing through the three feet of snow, he walks up to the bus stop, where Kyle and the others are already waiting.

"No dude, I'm totally serious. There's an app that costs a thousand dollars!" Stan was saying.

"What's it for?" Kyle asked.

"I don't really know: something about being treated like a VIP everywhere you go if you buy it."

No surprise, Cartmen looked excited. If there was anything the kid could be interested in, it's having superiority over everyone else.

"No way!" he said, "Guys we should totally buy it!"

"We don't have a thousand dollars, fat ass!"

"I meant we can make a thousand dollars, Jew! Think about it you guys: if we got this app, we could be VIP for everything! We'd probably even be allowed to skip school!"

Kenny was standing in his usual spot, on Cartmen's left, at the end of the line. He didn't like the way their talk was going. He could smell one of Cartmen's stupid plots from miles away.

"Kenny you can't play, you're too poor."

Well, that was the end of that. With the other three chatting up on their new game, Kenny was left alone to think to himself. He was tired and didn't want anything to do with this stupid app anyways. But that didn't stop him from cussing Cartmen out before the bus pulled up.

That day, the boys were content enough to ignore him. That happened every once in a while. Chances are they'd get Butters to fill in his place for the next for days. That happened too, and amazingly enough, it didn't bother him. He liked to be left alone every once and a while.

"And class, that's why a fast food chain can have so much control over both what? Religion and Government, correct."

Kenny's eyes flickered open and then they shut again. He had been floating in and out of sleep for the last half hour, sometimes hearing Garrison, and sometimes hearing beautiful women whispering to him. Decent dreams all in all, until he heard a new voice.

"Class, I've got a little surprise for you, m'kay."

Kenny's eyes opened and his head picked up. Mr. Mackey had just come into the classroom, head as big as ever. At his desk in the back, Kenny wasn't sure if Mackey had seen him sleeping, but he figured he'd wake up, just to be safe.

"Class, this is Hannah, m'kay, and she'll be joining your guy's class, m'kay."

In walks a girl, with fiery red, wavy hair ticked back behind a mint green headband, which matches the jacket pulled over her pastel yellow shirt. Her navy blue jeans are held up by a slim white belt, and her hands are gloveless. But Kenny can't see all of that. He's still stuck on her red hair.

That hair, though in a totally different style, is unmistakable: it's as red as it was that night in the alley.

"Oh great, another one. Damn kids are popping up everywhere. Well ok Hannah, you can sit in that desk in the corner," Garrison says and he shows her to her desk. The girl looks rather bored, with hardly a smile. When she sits, she instantly dazes out through the window, suddenly gone from the class.

Sure, her clothes are different, and she's not wearing a mask, and yeah, she doesn't have any eye shadow on, but he has no doubt in his mind. She is Red Handed.

That day at lunch, Kenny kept his eyes on Hannah the entire time. She had been dragged to the girls' lunch table by Wendy, but she didn't seem to mind. From what he could tell, she was happy for the company.

At recess, Hannah was standing next to Wendy, talking to her about what, he didn't know. He could talk to her of course. Cartmen and the others may have been busy with their get rich quick scheme, but even then, Kenny knew they would instantly pay attention to him if he went up to talk to the new girl. Cartmen could never pass up a chance to make fun of him.

But after school was different. The others took the bus home, but Kenny noticed Hannah was walking home. He decided to skip the bus and catch up to her.

"Hey!" he shouted. How can anyone ever understand what he's saying? He can hardly understand himself when he talks.

She stops and turns around, staring at him as if he was insane. It's only then that he realizes that he doesn't know what he wants to say to her.

"Uh…hi," he mumbles. She gives him a polite smile. "Hi."

"You're Hannah, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Kenny."

"Oh."

What could he say now? Sure, he knew who she was. It wasn't like her costume was very good at hiding her identity. But his costume was. There was no way she could know who he was. He was just embarrassing himself.

"Well…I have to go. Nice…meeting you." And then she was gone again.

He turned and stared at the empty school, realizing the buses were long gone.

"Fuck."

After a decent walk home, he decided that he was going to take a nap. He didn't even bother taking off his parka before crawling into bed and turning to lie on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He was still exhausted from earlier, and that walk didn't help any. He remembered the naked women in his dreams earlier, and was eager to fall asleep.

_A fleshy pink covers everything he sees. Tentacles bulge from the ground. Demons fly above him. There's a low humming in his ears, and he feels dizzy, even a little nauseous. This place gives him a nasty taste in his mouth, like rust and Pine Sol. He turns to leave, but there's no leaving this place. There's no escape._

_ A creature climbs up from beyond a hill. He doesn't bother to stay and get a good look at it. He's running before the thing can growl. Over slime pits and past fallen relics, the ground cracks under his feet, like clay dried to its breaking point. The sky is red, smoky, with moons that look like atoms and particles. He isn't sure where he's running, but he knows he has to leave. He can't stay, he can't be here. _

_ A shadow ahead of him deceives him. At first, it looks like a hill, maybe even a building. But it stirs and shifts, and he realizes it isn't a hill at all, but a monster beginning to awake. _

"Kenny?"

With a sickening falling feeling, Kenny wakes up with a gasp. His head turns and he stares at his bedroom door, which is cracked open just enough so that his little sister can poke her head in.

"Dinner's ready," she says cheerfully.

"Ok, I'll be there in a minute," he says and she leaves, closing the door completely.

R'lyeh. That was what the dream was about. He knew that place; he had been there before, back when Cartmen banished them there. But even if that hadn't happened, seeing that place just felt so familiar to him. Not exactly a comfortable feeling of course – the hell hole didn't feel like home or anything – but he knew he had been there before.

That night had been a good night for his family. Dinner was actually good – his mom had spent some extra money on his older brother's birthday just last week, and the left overs hasn't gone bad yet – and his sister was actually have a nice time watching her usual TV show before bed. His parents didn't argue, his sister didn't cry, his brother didn't make fun of him, and all in all, the night was actually almost peaceful.

After everyone had gone to bed, Kenny had to decide on something. Should he become Mysterion that night, or just stay home and catch up on sleep. This night had been good, and usually it was the bad nights that would put him under the mask. He was tempted to just stay inside. But then he remembered the nightmare, and suddenly he was putting his underwear on over his pants. He wasn't going to stay and risk another visit to R'lyeh, even if it was all in his head.

Mysterion is standing at the edge of library's roof, by the one street light in all of South Park. The streets are practically completely empty. It's getting late and everyone has gone home for the night. He hasn't seen any trouble so far. The sixth graders seem pretty tame since the other night. The vandalism hasn't spread, and the stray dog has been left alone in the park. No harm done.

Suddenly, however, Mysterion catches a glimpse of headlights. Below, a car is driving, approaching the street light. The light has just turned yellow, and the car is speeding up. As soon as it leaves the intersection, the light turns red, but the car keeps going.

Mysterion jumps to the next building, then jumps down, landing on the sidewalk. He runs, chasing after the car. Luckily, the driver has slowed down at the curve – probably because of the ice – and Mysterion can keep up well enough.

The car pulls into the driveway of a two story house. Mysterion climbs the rain gutter to the roof, and stares down at the car. Through the windshield, he can see the man: a little pudgy, sure, and obviously thinks he can sing, sense he refuses to get out of the car until his karaoke is over with, but it's his clothes that interest him the most. A uniform, no doubt, and after staring at it long enough, he notices that it's a security guard uniform.

_"A cop gone wrong. This is worse than I thought."_

Mysterion was going to wait until the cop got out of the car, but he was beat to the punch. Once again, there was a blur of gray and red, and suddenly, Red Handed was standing on the hood of the car, her hair blowing in what can hardly be called a breeze.

Mysterion steps back a bit, deciding to watch.

"What the hell! Get off my car!" the cop screams and he scurries out of his seat.

She stares him down and for a second, she doesn't answer. And then: "You broke a law."

"What?"

"Just now, you ran a red light. You're a cop and you're running a red light."

"I'm…I'm a security guard…"

"A cop. And people are supposed to look up to cops. They're supposed to be role models. I'm going to have to report you."

The man stands dumbfounded. "But…there wasn't anyone there."

"If someone had been crossing that sidewalk, you could have killed them."

Mysterion frowns. She had struck home there. With his luck, he's lucky he wasn't killed.

The cop nods but doesn't say anything. Red Handed pulls a notepad out from her belt, unattached a pen, and wrote down the man's name, the license plate, all of his information.

"I'll drop it off at the police station," and with that, she jumped down from the man's car and ran off.

Mysterion wasn't going to let her get away this time. He ran after her, jumped form the neighbor's roof, landing in a heap of snow, cutting the girl off. Red Handed stops abruptly and smiles at him.

"Hey Mysterion," she says with a flirtatious wink and he frowns at her.

"You've been on your toes the last few days. But why?"

"What do you mean?"

"You just moved here. Why should you care about South Park so much?"

She laughs. "It's my home now too. Why shouldn't I?"

He had no answer for that. Instead, he takes a step closer. "The Coon and Friends are done. But I can still use some help. What do you say?"

She laughs. "You mean a partnership?"

"An alliance. We can help the city more if we work together."

The girl smiles. "Sure. Sounds like fun."


	3. The Fuck?

Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 3

The Fuck?

Red Handed slowly unwinds her jump rope, gripping one of the ends with her gloved hand. Her eyes follow the figure walking down the sidewalk. Her feet shuffle, her mask scratches at her cheeks, and a single strand of hair is playing the irritating game, by tickling her nose and tangling up in her eyelashes.

"He's heading your way," she whispers into her walkie talkie.

A few rooftops away and across the street, hidden in shadows, is Mysterion, narrowed eyes watching the crook below.

His voice whispers into her ear: "Be ready."

She jumps to the next roof, running after the man, while still being as quiet as she can manage. She stops just for a moment, stares down at criminal, and then runs ahead of him. She doesn't stop until the next roof over is too far for her to jump. As planned, she takes the gutter down, then hides in the alley.

"I'm ready," she whispers.

She sees it all happen before it does: Mysterion jumps from the roof and lands in the middle of the sidewalk. His cloak wraps around him and covers most of his face. As the man turns towards him, Mysterion slowly lifts his head up.

The stranger panics and runs away. Red takes that as her signal and steps out of the alley and into the sidewalk. He screams and backs up, looking over his shoulder, then ahead of him.

"Wh-what do you kids want?" he asks.

Mysterion stands up straight and – from his back pocket – produces a crumbled candy wrapper. "Recognize this?" he asks.

The man just stares dumbfounded, shaking his head.

Red steps closer. "You dropped that by the park about half an hour ago. Littering is a crime, you know."

The man turns to her, eyes wide. She doesn't know who he is – and neither does Mysterion – but it doesn't matter any. He's a criminal and has to be stopped.

"I… I…I'm sorry," the man screams, and he breaks down crying, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. I didn't think anybody would care. I mean…it's just one piece of trash! I'm sorry!"

Mysterion narrows his eyes. "We're still going to have to report you."

The man stops his crying enough to give his name. Red is already ready with her pocket sized notebook. She writes his name down, then nods to Mysterion. He tucks the wrapper away. "We're keeping this as evidence. Don't let this happen again," he says, and then, from his belt, he pulls out a string of firecrackers. He lights them, and throws them at the man's feet. The explosion blinds him and he falls back on the ground. Meanwhile, Mysterion runs off into the alley on his right. Red takes his signal and runs to her own alley on the left. She blends into the shadows on the very end and watches as the man hobbles away, down the street, half blind and crying.

Not even twenty minutes later, and Mysterion and Red Handed had met up at the police station window just down the street. Mysterion opened the window, adjusted his cape so that it would catch the wind just right, and then jumped in. Red followed him.

"Mysterion," the police chief calls in shock and a group of officers gathers around the window. This is the first time Red has actually talked to the cops face to face. Before, she would just drop off the information as an anonymous tipper.

"Who's that?" the chief asks. Mysterion doesn't even glance over his should at her. Instead, he stays there, kneeling on one leg with his arm resting on his thigh. Red has adopted her own signature stance: her left hand on her hip, and her right leg sticking out lustily from her skirt.

"Her name is Red Handed. She's my new partner."

Chief nods. "Oh good. Didn't much like that fat kid you were with."

It might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn she actually saw Mysterion smile.

Mysterion went on. "There was a litterer in the park tonight. We have his name, and the evidence for it." He produced the wrapper again, only this time it's in a Ziploc baggy. The baggy itself looks a bit over used.

One of the officers took the wrapper from Mysterion. "We'll sweep this for DNA," the chief says, "what's the punk's name?"

Red takes her notebook out and reads the name allowed, spelling it out for them.

The chief nods. "We'll get right on it. Thank you Mysterion. And you, Red."

"No trouble," Red says and she throws in her traditional wink. Then she follows Mysterion out through the window, and down into the street. She doesn't even get to overhear one of the officers call her "hot".

She and Mysterion walk down the sidewalk, she smiling like a fool, feeling rather accomplished.

"Not a bad night," she comments. They had been hard at work this last week and a half, but hadn't turned up anything. This night was a good night for the two.

Mysterion nods. "From now on, people will think twice before they litter."

"Exactly. So what's next?"

Mysterion's hand comes up to his chin and his eyes narrow. "Well, we could try to clean off some of that graffiti on the bridge."

"Sounds like a good plan. Let's head back to my place and get some sponges."

She should have looked both ways before crossing that street. After already having to report somebody for running the red light, she should have known, she should have thought ahead. But she didn't.

One step into the street, and before she knew it, she was stretched flat on the road, her bones crushed, blood squeezed out of her like overcooked pizza rolls.

She felt pain first – unbearable, blinding pain – and then subtle relief. A bright light flashes in front of her eyes, and she has the light feeling of floating away, so far away, past the moon and the satellites…

And now she's falling, falling like a stone, past the stars she had just floated past, through the clouds that she had already tasted, down, down, down!

Back into her body; she takes a gasp and opens her eyes, adrenaline surging through her newly healed veins. Her body is all fixed up, down to every drop of blood, every marrow in her bones; sewn up like a plushy after a trip to the sewing machine.

She sits up with a grumble and a foul mood, and then looks over where Mysterion is standing, half way off the sidewalk.

_Why is he just staring at me?_

Mysterion blinks once, his mouth hanging open as if to catch flies.

She scowls. "What?!" she snaps.

His mouth gaps like a suffocating fish for a second. And then – finally – he mumbles out a few words.

"What the fuck?!"


	4. How to Die Right

Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 4

How To Die Right

"So…you can't die…." Mysterion whispers. He's sitting on the curb of the street, a single street light blinking in and out just above him. He hasn't been able to stop himself from gapping the last half hour. What he witnessed, he just can't wipe it from his mind. To see Red die, squished like a grape and scraped over the road like jelly: that was a shock in itself. But then to watch her body heal itself: to watch her arms reconnect, her blood reabsorb, her bones smooth down splinters and realign: to watch her inflate with life like a helium balloon…

His entire sense of reality has just been pushed over onto its side.

Red is pacing on the sidewalk behind him, looking regularly frustrated, but excited all the same.

"I've died plenty of times. Hundreds even. But I always come back," she says, "but every time I die…well whenever someone saw it happen, by the time I come back they forget, and just act like I fell down or something. No one has ever been able to remember before…"

Mysterion crosses his arms over his legs. He's trying to cope with the news before he tells her his own secret. He just can't get his head around the idea that he isn't alone…

"I don't get it; I mean, not even my friends back in Denver could remember me dying. Even when I told them the truth, they never believed me…"

Mysterion takes a deep breath. Time to make this night ever the more complicated:

"I…I know why I can remember. It's because I'm the same way. I can't die either," he says as he stands up and turns towards her. His cape is jumbled up around his arms and legs, not at all cool looking, but for once, he doesn't care.

Red stops and stares at him, blinking through her mask. And then her eyes narrow, her eyebrows meet as a 'V', and she frowns. "Listen, Ken," she says and Mysterion has to stop himself from yelling at her; she knows not to call him by his real name when he's in the mask, even if there's no one around, "I've lived with this curse ALL of my life, so don't mess with me, alright? It's not cool."

"I'm not messing with you. I really can't die."

Now it's Red's turn to stare gapping. Mysterion steps away to give her time. He stands on the sidewalk and stares off into the distance, at the horizon. His hand is rubbing at his chin, and he keeps moving his eyes, first to the mountains miles ahead of him, then to the ice covered ground, then to the brick wall on his right.

Red has finally contained herself. "That…explains why you remember…" she whispers.

Mysterion spins on his heels and stares at her. "I've always been like this, ever since I was born. I'm just like you. But when I die, I wake up back in my bed, wearing my parka. I don't just come back right then and there. How do you do that?" he asks.

Red shakes her head. "I don't know; it's not like I can control it."

The two stand there, quiet, staring at each other awkwardly. And then:

"Want to go get a milkshake?" Red asks.

"…yeah ok."

Before they knew it, they were sitting at the creek, slurping on milkshakes that they picked up from the local late night diner.

They were actually laughing.

"Ok, ok, so once, I was sitting eating dinner with my family, and a bullet shoots straight through the window and hits me right in the back of the head. Died instantly. Turns out, two girls on the school's roof shot it while they were fighting."

"From the school? That's clear across town! How is that even possible?"

Mysterion laughs. "It's not! But it totally happened!"

Red laughs and takes a spoonful of ice cream. "I can beat that: once I was just doing my homework in my room and the mob broke in and started shooting me and ripping me apart. They thought I was a snitch. Got my address mixed up with my neighbor's."

Mysterion laughed. "Fuck that: I once ate too many antacid tablets because I thought they were mints. As soon as I took a sip of water, I blew up like a fucking balloon."

Red chokes on her milkshake and has to cough it up into the creek, she's laughing so hard. "So then how many times have you committed suicide?" she asks after she catches her breath.

"On purpose or accidental?"

"Both."

Mysterion takes a few sips of the milkshake and thinks on it. He had lost count a few months ago.

"I think I'm at twenty five now," he says with a smile.

"Oh, loser!" she calls.

"How many times have you done it?"

Red beams. "One hundred and fourteen," she says proudly.

"Seriously? Why so many?"

"Well, some were on accident. But usually I do it because it's fun."

Mysterion lowers his smile a little. "Fun? Dying fucking hurts," he says.

Red smirks and gives him her signature wink.

"That's because you're not doing it right," she says.

Mysterion is starting to feel the high. He had taken about eight Dramamine pills, and now he could barely keep his mind straight.

Red was smiling like a goof. "Ok, ready?" she asks. He couldn't remember why he had said no to this an hour ago. It sounded like so much fun now.

"Ready," he says.

Red jumps off of the fence first and lands squarely on the nearest bull's back. With a wail and a snort, the bull bucks and jumps, running and sliding over the ice and snow, bumping into the other bulls and exciting them.

Mysterion jumps clumsily from his post, landing on a bucking bull. He lands backward, and has nothing to hold on to, but he just keeps laughing. He had gotten high plenty of times – he's cheesed, he's sniffed paint, he's done crack and weed and god knows that else – but he had never taken motion sickness pills before. They put his entire sense of balance into a whirl. The bull underneath him bucks and jumps, growling and spinning and Mysterion feels like he's on a carnival ride.

Red's bull bucks on his right and the girl goes flying, giggling all the way. When she lands on the ground, the steamed bulls trample her, and she dies laughing, as if she's just being tickled.

Mysterion can't help but laugh at her, and while he is, his own bull falls down and throws him. The last thing Mysterion feels is the numbing sensation of a hoof smashing his face in.

That next morning, Kenny wakes up in his bed back home, wearing his parka, and down from his high. But even still, he starts laughing and smiling like an idiot. Last night had been the best night of his life – of all of his lives. It's all he can do to stop himself from running over to her house like a lost puppy.

"Kenny, hurry up, you're going to be late for school," wheezes his mom from outside his room and he jumps out of bed and pulls his shoes on. He skips out on breakfast, doesn't even bother to say goodbye to his parents, and runs to the bus stop down the street.

Kyle and the other boys are there already, dressed in tuxes, complete with bowties and flowers in their lapels. Kyle is wearing a top hat with a stripe of white in the middle and is balancing against a fancy, black and ruby jeweled cane. Stan's hair is parted down the middle and a fake, curly mustache is drawn just above his lip; he puffs on a fake, bubble pipe. Cartmen's hair is patted down, and a monocle sits around his right eye. Without their hats, Kenny can just barely recognize them.

Cartmen glances at Kenny. "What are you smiling about?" he asks.

Kenny doesn't even bother asking how Cartmen can possibly see him smiling through his hood. Instead, Kenny's eyebrows arch. "What the hell are you guys wearing?" he asks.

"Oh that's right, you wouldn't know rich people's clothes, would you Kenneth? You're too poor," Cartmen mocks in a thick voice, "see, we're VIPs now, Kenneth, and we have the rich person responsibility of showing off just how rich we are."

Kenny's eyes widen. "You guys bought the app?!"

"Yes, among other things," Stan says as he pretends to curl his mustache.

"How the hell did you guys afford that?!"

"We have our ways," Kyle says as he taps the top of his cane against his head, giving a very snobby smirk.

The bus pulled up in front of them, and Kenny moves to get on, but the other boys just stand there and snicker at him.

"What?" Kenny asks, "Aren't you guys coming?"

Cartmen gives a hearty laugh. "Oh no no, we wouldn't be caught dead on that poor-mobile. We have our own ride coming for us."

The other boys start to chuckle.

Kenny has lost his smile. Pissed, he climbs the bus steps and sits in his usual seat. He doesn't bother to watch and see what ride is supposed to come to pick the boys up. He's decided that he shouldn't care.

Of course, that doesn't stop him from over hearing the gossip at school. Butters was especially excited about how the boys had been seen dropped off in the front of a school by a black hummer limo.

Kenny was in a foul mood until first period started. Then that mood vanished.

It only took quick eye contact between Hannah and Kenny to make them burst out laughing in their desks. Garrison turned on his heels. "What the hell is so funny?" he asks.

Cartmen stares Kenny down through his monocle. "Quite," he mumbles.

Kenny ignores him and turns away, trying hard to stop his giggling. Garrison went back to teaching, looking increasingly pissed. It only took him five minutes to get over it though. Then he turned around and announced their next group project.

"You'll be working in pairs, and you'll be researching a country that I assign you: you'll need to know the climate type, the tradition in culture, its capitol, its language, and give a list of the most common type of plants and animals that live there. And if you draw their flag, I'll give you extra credit. Ok, choose your partner, and I'll get your assignments ready."

The class was in a temporary chaos, as the students moved and exchanged desks. Kenny was up and half way across the classroom when Cartmen stopped him.

"Kenny, be my partner," he said, briefly losing his rich persona.

Kenny's eyebrows arched down. "Fuck you fat ass, I'm not being your partner," he says through his hoodie.

Cartmen is officially pissed off. "Kenny, be my partner!" he whines.

Kenny pushes past Cartmen and storms over to Hannah, who is waiting for him at the end of the room. When Kenny reaches her, he's smiling again, and the two pull the desks together.

Cartmen practically roars as he turns back to the rest of the students. Kyle and Stan are partnered up together, and so are Clyde and Craig, and Jimmy and Timmy. Cartmen ends up getting stuck with Butters, and that just pisses him off more.

Garrison takes one look at the partners and cusses under his breath. "Why do I always let them pick?" he mumbles, "Ok class, I'm going to pass out these index cards. Whatever country you get, that's the one you have to research."

Garrison passed the cards out to the groups. By the time he reached Hannah and Kenny, all he had left was Egypt. Neither one minded though. Egypt was easy to research, and before they knew it, they had carelessly thrown their assignment aside to talk to each other.

"We should have a contest," Hannah says, "do something stupid and see who dies first."

"I'd lose."

"With your luck? You'd die slow and painful."

Kenny pretends to be insulted, but he just laughs along with her instead.

The rest of that day was just as similar: at lunch, Kenny blew his friends off to sit with Hannah. At recess, he turned down football to play tetherball with Hannah. And after school, he walked her home, instead of taking the bus.

It was the start of an amazing friendship.

But all the while, a man has been watching them with beady eyes, stalking them like some kind of pervert. He was dressed in a cloak – even in the day – and his head was always tilted, as if it wasn't screwed on quite right, which was very well possible.

As the two walked to Hannah's house after school, the man smiled greedily and allowed himself a small laugh before turning away.


	5. Guardian Angel Helper

Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 5

Guardian Angel Helper

"I think we should call ourselves 'The Immortals'."

Mysterion readjusts the plywood, pushes against it, and watches as Red hammers it into place.

"The Immortals?" he asks in a grunt.

Red nods, and stretches to hammer the nail into the top right corner. "Yeah. It fits us, it's easy to remember, and it sounds pretty cool."

Mysterion steps back and gives the hideout a look over. The place was little more than a lopsided wooden box, with a makeshift window and a rectangular hole for a door. The wood was old and slightly rotten, but it was the best they could find in the city's junk yard. But with a few coats of paint, Mysterion knew the place would look great.

"I guess it sounds cool. Better than 'Coon and Friends'."

"We should work on a symbol too."

Mysterion walks inside their new clubhouse. The place is far from done; the floor needs a rug, or at least needs sanded down; the walls are too bare, and there's only one light, a camping lantern he had stolen from his dad. But it was coming around nicely. At least they had their own type of HQ now. Better than Cartmen's basement, which was a horribly strong possibility for a little while.

"A symbol? What about my question marks?" he asks as he sticks his head out of the window, checking the view. It was perfect; they could see the street from here, and the police station. And yet, the hide out itself was partially hidden by the snowdrifts and woods.

Red followed him into the clubhouse. "That's just your symbol though. There's nothing that implies that I'm a part of the team."

"There was only the bat signal, you know; Robin didn't get his own light."

"Yeah, because Robin was the _sidekick_. I'm the _partner_. I'm just as much as a part of this team as you are."

"Says who?"

"My immortality," she says with a wink. Mysterion has to give her a smile. Without her, there wouldn't be a team, that's for sure.

"What about a red hand holding a question mark?" she asks. She's lightly pushing against the right wall, testing how sturdy it is.

Mysterion shrugs. "That sounds kinda gay."

"Well we need something. A scull?"

"We're not pirates."

"I didn't say cross bones did I?"

Just then, sirens ring over the woods. Mysterion looks out the window and watches as three police cars squeal off into the night. He turns to Red and then runs to the door.

"Let's go."

When Hannah was eight years old, her rich grandmother bought her an electric scooter for Christmas. A decently sized thing, but it had a hundred and twenty pound weight limit, and barely covered ten miles per hour. The pink paint job was tolerated only until a week ago, when Kenny had smuggled some spray paint from his garage and offered to repaint the thing for her. Now it was a dark black, with red stripes running down the handle bars and onto the platform.

Now, it was their most reliable ride around town.

Mysterion always volunteered to drive, even though it was her scooter. He claimed that he liked to drive because the guys are supposed to be the driver – his image would be a little less cool if she was driving – but in actuality, he just liked it when she was in the back, her arms wrapped around his waist, and he liked how she would shield her face against the cold by bearing it against his neck.

Slowly, the scooter followed the police cars, falling far behind. But they caught up soon enough when the cops stopped at a one story house just on the edge of town.

Mysterion slowed the scooter down and stared as the police got out of their cars and ran to the front yard.

"Fuck."

It wasn't the first time the police had been called to the McCormick house, and Mysterion knew it wouldn't be the last. He jumped off the scooter and left it for Red to park. He stared at the green house, at the broken garage door, at the rusty truck in the driveway, at the cracks running down from the roof.

The police were scattered all over the lot. A few of them – the chief as one – was talking to his parents in the front yard. Now that was a sight; the police were talking to the McCormicks, instead of just arresting them.

"And then he just ran away, screaming, like a maniac," Mrs. McCormick was saying, her husband standing beside her, nodding and chugging a beer. Red caught up, and the two walked up to the group.

"Chief," Mysterion interrupted. The chief turned towards them. "Mysterion, Red, glad you guys showed up. We could use some help on this one."

"What happened here?" Red asks. Mysterion was busy looking over the scene from where he was standing. Everything was as trashy as ever, with nothing out of the ordinary. But he couldn't help but notice that neither his brother nor his sister was outside with his parents. That worried him.

"A breaking and entering," Chief goes on, "but the suspect got away before we could put him into custody."

Mysterion was staring at the side of the house. "I'm going to look around. Chief, get Red caught up on everything," he says as he walks off. Red and Chief begin to talk behind him.

Behind the house, its underbelly littered with old tires and broken beer bottles, was a lit window. Mysterion climbs to it, lifts the glass, and stands on the seal. Inside is a room, with a single size bed and a lacey pillow. Sitting on the floor, playing with her doll, was Karen McCormick, humming lightly to herself.

"Karen," he says, his voice sounding more alien than usual. The seven year old looks up at him and smiles, beaming at just the sight of him.

"Hi Guardian Angel," she says as she climbs up on his bed, getting a closer look at him.

"Are you alright?" he asks.

"Yeah, I'm ok."

"What happened here?"

Her eyes turn away and she twists her hands together. "Oh, a really weird man came into our house earlier and messed up my brother's room."

"Kevin's?"

"No, Kenny's. But he isn't here. We don't know where he is. But the man said he was looking for someone. Daddy was about to shoot him but then the man ran away and we don't know where he went."

Mysterion's eyes cast down onto the floor.

_Who was looking for me?_

"Mysterion."

Mysterion looks over his shoulder, where Red is standing in the mess of beer bottles. He jumps down from the window. "What have you found?" he asks.

"Nothing yet, but Chief turned this up." She holds out her gloved hand. Tangled there in her palm is a broken silver chained necklace, with a single pendant: a silver disk with a curious star engraved into it. The star looked incomplete, with too many lines, most ending in a circle or a curve, and one even in a cross.

The symbol looked familiar to him, but he couldn't say why.

"Are you a guardian angel too?" a small voice asks. Mysterion looks up at the window and his heart sinks. Karen is staring down at them, her doll in her arms, and her eyes locked on Red Handed.

Mysterion swings towards Red. He wants to tell her not to reveal anything, to let Karen keep thinking he isn't actually her brother. He can't let Karen's hopes get crushed…

Red smiles up at the girl. "Actually, I am a Guardian Angel helper. He wants to make sure we catch the bad guy, so he asked me to help him."

That smile she's making; Mysterion has seen her smile plenty of times in the last three weeks. He's seen her smirk when she winks at him, he's seen her giggle when she was high, or laugh and snort and choke on ice cream, but this smile is different. This smile is kind, gentle even, like a mother telling her child about Santa Claus.

Karen gives the Red a big smile. "Can you find my brother too?" she asks.

Red's eyes only give Mysterion a quick glance. "Oh we already found him," Red says cautiously, "we're just keeping him safe so the bad man doesn't get him."

"Oh, that's good."

Mysterion looks up at his little sister. "Karen, you should go to bed. You have school tomorrow."

She yawns. "Ok. Goodnight Guardian Angel. Goodnight Guardian Angel Helper."

And with that, the little girl hides away. The window closes, and the light is turned off.

Mysterion turns to Red. "Thanks," he mumbles.

Red shrugs. "No problem. Now, back to this," and she holds the necklace up, letting it swing so that it can catch the little light there is.

Mysterion takes the pendent and stares at it. Where has he seen this symbol before?

"Cthulhu." The word escapes his lips before he so much as thinks them.

"Cthulhu? That monster that was wrecking New Orleans?" Red asks. Mysterion clenches his fist around the necklace.

"Let's go," he says. He runs out to the sidewalk, passing the cops without so much as a second glance.

"We're on it, Chief," Red calls and she jumps onto the back of the electric scooter. Mysterion puts it on full power and they speed off.

"A few weeks ago, Cthulhu was released, and the cult went crazy thinking it was the end of the world that the Necronomicon predicted," he shouts at her over his shoulder.

"Necronomicon?"

"Sort of like their bible. I don't know much about it, but I remember seeing that symbol on the book the cult was reading at one of their meetings, when I was trying to figure out how to send Cthulhu back."

"But what does the cult want to do with you?" Red calls.

Mysterion grits his teeth and swerves to dodge a patch of ice in the street, but the swerve was too strong. The scooter slid, tilted, and fell, dragging the children into the asphalt. Mysterion tumbles to the ground and bounces like a ball, but Red is spun away, skidding over ice, dirt, and rock like a skipping stone. She lands hard against the sidewalk, her knee jammed into the sewer drain. By the time Mysterion stands up and brushes the dirt off of his pants, the girl is already screaming in pain from her snapped leg.

He shakes his head and walks over to the girl.

"I don't know what he wants from me," he mumbles as he walks up to her. From his belt, he pulls out a 45 automatic. "All I know is that my parents used to go to the cult meetings just before I was born, and I always figured that's what made me immortal." He hands the gun to Red, and she takes it eagerly. He walks off into the road and straightens the scooter, checking it to see if it's still in one piece. Behind him, there is a click and a blast. Blood spurges everywhere, a few drops making it onto his cheek. He carelessly wipes them away and he checks for scratches on the scooter.

A minute later, Mysterion hears Red take her first gasping breath of life. He doesn't even bother turning around to her.

"Hey, do you know if your parents were part of that cult?" He asks her.

Red stands up slowly, fixing her hair and calming her breathing. "I don't know," she says as she tests her legs, first one and then the other. She walks up to Mysterion and hands him his gun.

"They worship Cthulhu," Mysterion says as he puts his gun back into his belt, "and prayed for the end of the world, but as far as I could tell, the cult stopped meeting after Cthulhu was sent back to R'lyeh."

"R'lyeh?"

Mysterion boards the scooter again, scooting it away from another batch of ice. "A hell hole," he says, "the city fallen from the stars. Cartmen got Cthulhu to send me there once. The place…it was a nightmare."

"So now the cult is meeting again?" Red asks. She stands onto the scooter and wraps her arms around his waist.

Mysterion takes a deep breath. "Sounds like it," he says.


	6. Count Yourself Lucky

Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 6

Count Yourself Lucky

"That's gross. Did you know that to mummify people, they would take all their organs out? They would shove a hook up the person's nose and scrape out the brain." Kenny turns a page in the book. "Now _that _would fucking hurt."

"Yeah, I don't plan on trying that one." Hannah opens her spiral and starts to doodle in it.

"Drawing their flag?" Kenny asks. He hadn't thought she was really that eager for a good grade.

"No, I'm drawing ours. Look." She holds her notebook up. Shaded in by a red pen was a thanksgiving turkey hand, arched at an angle. In the middle of the palm a green question mark, sketched and filled in by a green marker. The hand itself has no definition in the finger tips, and the question mark looks all wrong. There is no curve on the top, making the entire thing look more like a seven, with a random dot underneath.

He shakes his head. "The colors make it look like a Christmas card," he says, "let me try it."

Hannah hands him her pens and notebook, then takes the textbook from him.

"A common plant was papaya. They actually used it to make paper. And a common animal was the Nile crocodile. Ever got eaten by one of those?"

Kenny draws a large circle. "No."

"I have. Denver Zoo. Took me twenty minutes just to die."

"Ouch."

Hannah leans over the table and looks at his spiral. With a fit of disgust, she pulls the notebook from him. "Dammit Kenny, that's not going to be our symbol," she snaps as she tears the doodle away. Kenny has one last glimpse of his pornographic art before it's gone forever.

He just laughs and she rolls her eyes at him playfully.

That day, like always, Kenny and Hannah spent their recess together. They built up a snowman, and broke out into a playful snowball fight. Hannah had a good arm; she was able to get several good shots right at his face. So he tackled her to the ground, and soon they were both laughing, covered in snow.

Suddenly, the sun was blocked by a near solar eclipse. Kenny looked up only to find Cartmen standing above him, his fat bulging out of his tux. He was cleaning his monocle with a handkerchief.

"Kenneth, the guys and I have been talking, and, we're willing to let you join us as VIPs."

Kenny sits up and his head tilts. "You are?"

"Yes. We'll even help you out financially until you can make up the money on your own."

Kenny stands up straight and gives Hannah his hand. He pulls her to his feet then turns back to Cartmen. Behind the fifth grader, Kenny could see Stan and Kyle posing beside the jungle gym. They were trying to look important, and were showing off to all of the other kids on the playground.

"And how am I supposed to do that?" Kenny asks.

Cartmen replaces his monocle. "You'll work for us. We've opened a business you see, and we need to hire employees."

Hannah brushes the snow off of her pants. "What kind of business?" she asks nonchalantly.

Cartmen stares her down. "That's a trade secret," he says coldly.

Kenny is turned off of the offer instantly.

"No thanks, I'm good."

Cartmen blinks. "But…Kenny, this will make you rich."

_If there's one thing I've learned from you, it's that you lose twice as much of what you gain._

Kenny turns back to Hannah. "C'mon, let's go play on the swings," he says, and the two walk away, smiling.

Cartmen starts to cuss, turns away, and hobbles over to the monkey bars.

"He said no!" he shouts.

Stan and Kyle turn towards their somewhat friend. "He said no?"

"Yeah, he fucking said no! I don't get it! He's poor as shit, and we offer to help him out, offer to share the wealth, and he turns it down!"

Kenny is over hearing all of this from the swing set not far away and he's trying not to laugh. He just loves pissing Cartmen off.

Kyle shrugs. "Well, maybe he just doesn't want to play."

Cartmen's eyes narrow so much that he has to take his monocle out. He throws it on the ground. "You think this is a mother fucking game, Kyle?! We're not _pretending _to be VIPs, ok. It's fucking real."

Stan's head tilts. "Dude, we got the free version of the VIP app, and we already had our suits from Kyle's grandma's funeral a few years ago."

"Careful Kenny."

Kyle nods. "Yeah, and you're monocle and my cane are just part of a Halloween costume."

"Yeah, but that hummer limo was real!"

"Kenny, slow down!"

"Cartmen, the only reason why we got a ride from that limo is because the driver was dumb enough to think that the VIP app means we can get free stuff."

"So? He still fucking drove us to school!"

"Kenny!"

Kenny hadn't realized how high he was swinging until it was too late. With one final pump of his legs, Kenny loops over the top bar, shoots off the swing, and flies straight into the side of the school. Splat; his guts spread over the brick like a bug on a windshield.

Hannah slams her heels into the snow and forces herself to stop.

"Oh my God! They killed Kenny!"

"You bastard!"

Hannah's eyes shoot over the scene. Kenny's guts and parts are slowly flaking off of the brick. The other fifth graders stand gaping at the disaster. Stan has dropped his pipe, Kyle has let go of his cane, and Cartmen is on the floor, rolling in the snow, laughing.

And then, suddenly, Hannah sees it all reset in their eyes. Every fifth grader around her looks confused. Stan hesitates before picking up his pipe; Kyle grabs for his cane and Cartmen rolls until he can stand up, adjusts his monocle, and turns away from the mess.

And they all just keep talking, as if nothing ever happened.

Hannah looks back up at Kenny's remains, or what is left. Like that night of the bull riding, his body was already disappearing. The guts and blood start to fade; his cracked scull and misplaced femur have vanished, and soon all that is left is his orange parka. And then, that's even gone.

She sighs and jumps out of the swing. Screw the rest of the school day. She can catch up tomorrow. Solemnly, she leaves the playground and walks down the street. Past the small shops and the two story houses, Hannah finally reaches the McCormick house.

In the last three weeks, Hannah has only been here once; the other night, when the cops were called. She didn't know which room was Kenny's, but it only took a few window searching until she could find it: the room with the dirty posters on the walls. No doubt about it.

But Kenny wasn't in his bed.

Hannah stands on some discarded milk cartons to look into the room. She waits and stares. Kenny had told her once that he always returned back in his bed. She was starting to wonder if this wasn't his room after all until the bedroom door opened.

She ducked down a bit and watched as Kenny's mom came into the room, looking half asleep. In her arms was a small bundle, which she wrapped in an orange jacket that she took from Kenny's dresser.

The woman placed the bundle on the bed, and then left, not saying a word.

Hannah waited a minute, then pulled the window open and crept into the room. She heads to the bed and stares down at the bundle.

It's a baby.

Hannah understands in a heartbeat, and is hardly surprise as Kenny's new body grows to its original age, filling his parka up until all of his shaggy blond hair is covered by the hood.

When he's finished growing, his eyes shoot open and he looks at her.

She just stares at him.

Later that night, Mysterion and Red Handed are working on their hideout. They were painting the outside a typical smoky gray, the inside already done. Mysterion had barely said anything in the last hour, but Red didn't have to guess why. After he had woken up, Hannah and Kenny had returned to school, only to be yelled at by Garrison for trying to skip class. They both got detention for it.

That had put Kenny in a foul mood, and it hadn't changed with the mask. Hannah hadn't even been able to cheer him up.

But then again, she hadn't actually tried.

"You shouldn't be mad at them," the red head says as she covers the edge of the window. Mysterion is on the wall to her left.

"Mad at who?" he grunts.

"Garrison, Kyle and Stan, the other fifth graders. It's not their fault that they can't remember."

Mysterion slaps a large glob of paint onto the wood. "They're assholes. Don't even remember their own friend dying right in front of them."

Red shakes her head. "It's not their fault," she says again, "they cared when they first saw it. Well…Cartmen didn't. You can be mad at him. But everyone else—"

"They never fucking care. They always say the same thing; every god damn time! 'They killed Kenny', and 'You bastard', and then they just move on. Who the hell is 'they' anyways? Because if there are a group of people controlling this, I want to fucking meet them so I can kick their asses!"

Red stops painting and turns to him. "Kenny, it's part of the curse—"

"Well you know what? It fucking sucks! My friends never remember! I die _right _in front of them, and they never fucking remember! And you know what? My parents never fucking remember either! My own parents! I get shot in the head at the fucking dinner table, and the next morning, they're yelling at me for being late for school!"

Red throws the paintbrush down into the snow. The white at her feet instantly turns black, looking like a grape snow cone.

Her red gloves ball up into fists. "Well at least you fucking have parents!" she shouts at him. "Do you know how jealous I am with that? Do you know how my home life is?! My dad is gone for days at a time because of fucking work, and my mom is dead!"

Mysterion's eyes widen while Red takes a deep breath.

"You have no idea what I would give to have a mom like yours. Do you even know that every time you die, she's the one that's giving birth to your new body?"

"Wh…what?"

"You didn't know did you? That's right; every time you die, your mom gives birth to your new body. That's why you wake up in your room every morning! She puts you there after she gives birth to you! And you know why I just come back to life where I died? Because my mom died when she gave birth to me the first time! Because she's not here to keep doing it for me over and over again!"

Mysterion frowns. "Hannah…" he whispers. She's crying. He's never seen her cry. He's heard her scream in pain, but he has never seen her cry.

Red shakes her head. "Just count yourself lucky, Ken. You have the curse, sure, but at least you're not alone with it. At least you have family. And…at least you have friends."

With that, Red turns and leaves.

Across the little town, hidden in his basement, is a pathetic little man leaning over an ancient book. Slowly, he starts to chant a long ritual in a language long forgotten to the rest of the world. Before him, a symbol – etched in shards of broken glass – is laid out on his desk. With every word, the glass shakes and bleeds. Through the melting shards, the man can see a whole other world; a world filled with demons and death.

He smiles to himself. He's ready.


	7. BYOB

Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 7

BYOB

Red slams the door behind her and buries her face into the couch cushion. She feels like an absolute idiot; like the spoiled, dramatic teenager brats she's watched on Disney Channel. Kenny hadn't been picking a fight with her. She knows how bad the curse is, how torturing it makes life; she should have just sympathized with him, not snap at him.

But she couldn't have helped it. He had touched a nerve when he started to complain about his parents.

Red calms herself down, lying on the couch. After maybe half an hour, she sits up and readjusts her mask. Like being emotional isn't enough, now she's suddenly craving some sort of comfort.

She goes to the study, knowing what can help.

In the last month, Hannah hadn't been able to unpack anything more than the bare necessities. Since her dad was always away at work, she's had no help with unpacking, nor has she had the time since she and Mysterion had teamed up. With him and school, she hasn't been able to tackle the pile of boxes that the movers had left for her in the study.

Red stands on her toes and pulls down box after box from the pile. They're filled with miscellaneous things: dishes, movies, the missing cable to her printer that she had been looking for; she had to go through several boxes before she could find them.

But she did. After ripping the strip of boxing tape off of the cardboard, she saw her prize: the four scrapbooks, piled on top of each other, crammed together with picture frames and old jewelry.

Red reaches for the first book. It's a large one, with white lace decorating the hard cover. When she opens it, she sees dozens of wedding photos, some with her uncle Alex, or with Grandma, and others with her great aunt Haley or Cousin Jake.

But in each of them, it was the bride that Red was staring at. Wearing an elegant, strapless, white gown, her red hair pinned up with pearls, was Hannah's mom: Eliza. In all of the pictures, Eliza and her new groom – Zach – were smiling and holding hands, hugging each other and their new family.

Red had never seen her dad so happy. She actually can't even remember if she's ever seen him smile.

In the next scrapbook, there are plenty of pictures of Eliza and Zach; of their apartment, of their dates in the park, of their honeymoon to Jamaica; a few had a pet dog that Hannah had never met: a little mutt that was always found sleeping on the sofa, and the rest were all taken of the trees and the mountains in the horizon.

The third wasn't much different, only it had more birthdays and holidays. But it was the fourth scrapbook that Red is most sensitive about.

The pictures are all of her mom, and the swollen belly she was nursing.

Her dad had only told Hannah about her mom's death once, when she was seven. All Hannah knew was that her mom didn't survive childbirth. She didn't know why, and she wasn't sure if it was her fault or the doctors, but looking at these pictures always made her sad. She wished she could jump into them, into the time taken and paused before her, to warn her mom. Maybe then things could be different.

Red sighs and stands up, picking up the four books. She's tired; she's had enough. But as she puts them back, something catches her eye. There's another book, tucked in the corner, half hidden by her mother's home knitted socks.

Curious, Red reaches in and takes it. It's a small thing, no larger than a pocket calendar, but thicker, and with better binding. The cover is a light blue, with flowers painted on it. There's no title, no words on the outside.

Red flips the book open and stares at the cursive written on the pages; hand written entries, all dated, all signed. She gasps. She had forgotten about this little thing years ago. She knew it was a diary – her mom's diary – but hadn't known cursive. It had all looked like a foreign language to her. She hadn't been able to read a word. But now! Now she was in the fifth grade! She learned cursive over a year ago, and could read it, more or less.

Red sat cross legged on the floor, a wave of bitter excitement washing over her. She was reading the first entry before she could even breathe in.

_I am now officially a wife! Zach and I are on our way to Jamaica now four our honeymoon. I can't wait until we get there! Our hotel room is right on the beach, and the resort is going to be beautiful!_

Red skipped ahead. She didn't need to read how that night turned out. She was old enough to know what a honeymoon meant.

There were plenty of entries about their new apartment, how happy she was, the dog and how much it pissed Zach off. And then:

_I came out to Zach today. I told him my little secret. I was so worried what he would think but he turned out to be ok with it. Actually, even better than ok, he wanted to come with me to the next meeting. Honestly I didn't see that coming, but I guess I shouldn't be surprise. Zach was never very religious, but he's always been up for learning about cultures. Converting him to the Necronomicon should be easy._

Red doesn't turn the page for a long time. _Necronomicon…Mysterion said something about that…_

Red kept reading.

_Zach has been really enthusiastic about our new religion. He's actually started to read up the scriptures on his own, and he's even practice the prayers and chants! But the best news is that I was able to convince him that we should have our first child blessed!_

_ Our leader said that if we conceive during a ritual, our child will be born blessed! No one knows what that means of course – none of the babies have survived it yet – but Zach said that we can try it. He wants to be the father of a prophet._

This was what Mysterion had been talking about. He said that their curse had something to do with that cult; now Red had proof of it.

But this meant that her mom had planned for Hannah to be like this…

"They said if I brought you here, they could bring her back."

Red was on her feet instantly, turned towards the study door, trembling just a bit. There stood a man that she could never fully recognize. Zach was as pale as ever, his black hair reseeding past his ears, his eyebrows up and lightened, and bags under his eyes. He still wore his pilot uniform, and there was a suitcase by his feet.

Red was suddenly very aware that she was still in her costume.

"What do you mean?" she asks.

Her dad stumbles into the room, suddenly looking angry. "You're the reason why she's gone! You're the reason why she died! If you hadn't…you killed her!"

_He's drunk…_

Zach throws his hat on the floor and starts to sob. "You were so sick. They thought you would die, before you were even born. But…you took her life instead. Took it instead of dying."

He turns to her. "Don't you understand? You weren't supposed to be born! You shouldn't have ever been born! But…but…I can make it right again. They said they can do it. If I just…if I just bring you to them."

Kenny McCormick leans into his desk and stares across Stan and Craig, to the empty desk by the window. He takes a deep breath and then turns away, staring at his hands as they rest in his lap.

She skipped school to avoid him. He was sure of it.

He hadn't known about his mom…and he hadn't known about her mom either. She never told him. But it did all make sense now; why he woke up in his room every time, and why she just came back wherever she was. He would have to talk to his mom about things later, ask her why she never said anything about it. But he wasn't in the mood for it now. He needed to set things right with Hannah first.

It was surprisingly easy to leave the school during recess, and from the school he went to Hannah's house a few blocks away. He had never actually been inside before. Always, she would meet him up front, or on the sidewalk, or at their hideout in the woods. But this was different. As he knocked on the door, it slid open with a stereotypical creak. Kenny looked inside, his eyes having to adjust to the change in light.

"Hannah?" he asks in a muffle. Nothing.

"Hannah, you home?" he calls. When no one replies, he steps inside, cautiously. He's seen enough horror movies – and has died by enough monsters – to sense when something was wrong.

The house was dark and near empty; it was obvious that the family had just moved in; with no pictures on the walls, or curtains on the far window, the place looked almost abandoned. The only sign of life he could even count was the sole white paper left on the wooden table by the staircase. Kenny was going to ignore it until he saw the green question mark drawn in pen.

"_If you want to see her again, meet us at the hideout, 8 o'clock, and no cops. And BYOB"_

Kenny was out the door before the letter could reach the ground.


	8. Sacrificed

Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 8

Mysterion was in the hideout by 6 o'clock, brooding in the corner of their little half-done box. He knew the good guy wasn't supposed to show up until right at the best part of the showdown, when the bad guys have their hostage situated and their people all round up, but Mysterion couldn't wait that long.

There were only two people that would be willing to kidnap Hannah. Cartmen was one of course. He was always a suspect in Mysterion's book. But he only suspected him a little; it was the cult that he was expecting.

Why would they want him? He hadn't even been the one to send Cthulhu back, so it couldn't be revenge. Did they want his immortality? They didn't have to take Hannah for that; he would give it to them happily, if he thought he could.

He felt a knot of guilt hidden deep underneath his underwear; he and Hannah hadn't exactly left on good terms. He was sure she couldn't still be mad at him, but what if their fight had given the cult the chance to kidnap her? Usually, he would always walk her home. She hated that of course - she can take care of herself, she would always say - but Mysterion felt that it wasn't hero-like to let a little girl walk home alone in the dark, even if that girl was someone like Red. But that night, he had let her go, had stayed behind to finish painting the hideout, to calm himself down. He should have been there to protect her.

At 7, there was some movement outside. Mysterion covered his face with his cape, then stepped to the window to get a better look. Beyond some snow covered trees were hooded figures, all moving in straight lines, sprinkling something on the ground. No doubt about it, they're the cultist, preparing for their meeting.

He was the hero after all; all the movies say that he has to wait until they're ready for him. He can't do anything but watch for now.

At 7:45, Mysteiron climbs atop the hideout, trying to get a bird's eye view. The symbol was a giant, misalined star, centered into a large circle, like the one he recognized on the pendent. There were other smaller symbols surrounding the star - those he didn't recognize, but he didn't really care either. It took him a few minutes to figure out what the star and circle was actually made out of. The material was shinny, and glistened like confetti, but it wasn't until Red was brought until view, bound and gagged and dragged until the star, only to stumble and fall onto one the lines, and bleed from a cut that it had given her, that he realized that it was all actually glass; hundreds of tiny shards and splinters, mixed into the snow. Red was placed right in the center of the star, tossed there to sit and wait. Her hair was a mess, the bun half undone and tousled. Her mask was crooked, and the right sleeve on her jacket was torn a bit.

The cult was circling their artwork, chatting about what a great night it would be, and about how they couldn't wait until the after party. At exactly 8 o'clock, Mysterion stood up straight, pushed his cape behind him, and waited until someone noticed.

"Mysterion," says one of the cultists, the one in a black robe while the rest wore red ones. Mysterion recognized him only as the cult leader who had stabbed him in the alley months ago.

The man steps closer towards the hide out, looking up at the young super hero. "We were hoping you would come, child," he said.

Mysterion's eyes narrowed. "Let the girl go," he says, upping up the batman voice just for the moment.

The cult leader smiles smugly. "Oh, we can't do that. You see, I need the both of you to make this work right."

"Make what work right?"

The cult leader strolls over to the edge of the circle. Mysterion only took a quick glimpse of Red, whose eyes were wide, as her head turned from him, and then back to the cultist.

The leader flips the pages of a large leather book that he took from inside his robe. "You see Mysterion; I have been watching you both for a long time; since our great Cthulhu was sent back to his eternal rest. It took a little while, to track you both down, to be sure that I was right. But it all paid off in the end."

The cultist now turns to Mysterion. "I know your guys' secret. I know you two are both blessed by Cthulhu. And do you have any idea how valuable blessed souls are to the ways of the Necronomicon? The gods would pay a lot, to have you both returned to where you belong."

Mysterion's eyebrows arch. He doesn't even hear the low grunt behind him.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

The cult leader finds the page he's been searching for. "The Great Old Ones, the ones who we worship to; you didn't think Cthulhu was the only one, did you? Those gods are powerful, more powerful than you could ever believe, but they have one weakness; they can't escape their prison in R'lyeh. They are trapped there, trapped until someone awakens them."

His head snaps up. "And we know how to wake them."

The chants start slow; the circle of cultist whisper foreign words that Mysterion can't understand. The leader adds his voice to the chorus, and they all start to raise their voice, louder and louder, until the woods begin to echo them back.

Mysterion's eyes are on Red, and on the symbol she sits in. The glass has started to shake, to quiver, and now melt, looking like liquid silver. A puddle forms under Red, as she squirms to be let loose. Suddenly her head snaps up, and her eyes bore into him, just before the puddle is complete, and the new world underneath shines into reality.

Red is falling, falling through the portal, and vanishes.

"Hannah!" Mysterion shouts. He doesn't hear the movement behind him, and it isn't until one of the cultist has him in a tight grip that he realizes what's happening. Suddenly, he's thrown into the air and is falling, down, down, below the snow, into the puddle of liquid glass, and into R'lyeh.

He was able to aim his fall, swimming in the air, until he landed on a cushioned, jelly tentacle base. The thing twitched when he landed into it, but the tentacle wasn't flexible enough to reach him. Rocking along as if he was being swallowed by a water bed, Mysterion crawled off and landed on a rocky floor, one that was blood red. He looked around. The place was just as he remembered it, just as it was in his nightmares; pink and purple tentacles swelled from craters; muddy green bushes growled in the shadows of floating purple lava lamp goop. The horizon couldn't be seen, swallowed and blocked by mountains and move beasts. The entire place had a pink feel to it, but with a haze of red and black. This was more like Hell than the real one.

"Hannah" Mysterion shouted, casually walking past shadows and slimy bugs. It took a lot of concentration until he could pinpoint where a muffled scream was coming from. He sprinted towards it, past fallen vines and through clouds of orange smoke, until he found Red, still bound and gagged. He ran to her and pulled her gag off.

"Are you ok?" he asks.

She scowls at him. "I get into a fight with my best friend, found out my mom planned for me to be cursed, my dad just turned me over to a cult to be sacrificed, and I fell through some portal and broke my neck, only to wake up in this hell hole! No I'm not ok!"

He tugged at the ropes around her wrists. When they were loose, he untied the ones around her ankles.

"What do you mean, your mom planned it?" he asks.

Red is busy fixing the bun of her hair. "Apparently, my mom was a cultist, and she knew that if I was conceived during some stupid ritual, I would be born like this. I don't think she knew I would be immortal though."

"I don't think any of them do," Mysterion mumbles. The insight of how they became immortal, somehow it wasn't surprising. As gross as it was, he wouldn't have been at all surprise if he found out his parents had conceived him at one of the cult meetings too. They had been extremely drunk after all.

"Where are we?" Red asks when she was freed. She stands and takes a look around. Mysterion busies himself by tucking the ropes into a clip on his belt, deciding to save them, just in case.

"This is R'lyeh; the place where Cartmen sent me that one time."

Red picks a slop of slime off from the bottom of her shoe. "It feels...familiar."

"I thought so too my first time. That priest said that we belong here."

Red is by his side, her jump rope unwrapped and in her gloved right hand. "I hope not."

A tremor suddenly shakes the ground, and Mysterion catches himself from falling. Above him, far above, is a flash of light. Mysterion has just a quick second before the portal has closed entirely.

And suddenly, life has awoken.

Demon creatures move all at once, taking the sky, peeling off of the ground, morphing from the shadows; some have wings, some have pinchers, some have hands like claws and tails like scorpions; but all of them look hungry.

"Move!" Mysterion shouts and he grabs Red's hand. Pulling her, they dodge away from the demons, most crevices and acid lakes. Red stumbles as she tries to keep up, but she doesn't fall. Mysterion is barely able to dodge as a wasp like creature spits venom at him, and he isn't sure how he was able to slip past the three horned one with the snake tongue. But eventually they out run the monsters – or the monsters just get bored and move on. Reflexes he hadn't thought he had kicked in, as he slingshot Red into a cave on his left, then slipped in beside her.

"How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?" Red pants. Mysterion had just been thinking on that. This was all too much like the first time he came here.

He turns to the girl. "Stay here and try to stay safe," he tells her.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to the real world; if I die here, I wake up in my room same as always. I'll go and try to find a way to open the portal. Then I can rescue you."

Red must be terrified. He would be, if he was stuck in a place like this, all alone. But she doesn't disagree with him. Instead, she puts on a strong face and nods. "Ok, just hurry."

"Are you going to be ok?" he asks stupidly.

Red is suddenly back to her old self. With a wink and a smirk, she says: "I'll be fine."

It was a slug demon this time. Nearly three stories tall and it moved with a swell in its stomach muscle, slime gorging around it. Mysterion had been looking the other way, not paying attention, when the creature ran him over, its muscles bulging all around Mysterion. Whether he would die by suffocation or crushed organs he wasn't sure, but the pressure was unbearable, and he could feel the blood squeezing through his head like a popped pimple. He would scream, but the slime muffled him, and his face felt scrapped off from the rocks he was being dragged against. But finally, he felt the relief, and knew that he was gone.

Sleeping in his bed, in a totally different world, is a young Jewish boy in a green cap. Unsettled, he turns into his bed, eyes still closed, but lightly he mumbles "Bastard", before relaxing again.

Past the wave of a dimension, past stars and galaxies and through a flood of clouds, Kenny floated away, to Heaven's Gate…

_Hurry up already!_

The plummet to Earth felt longer than usual. He didn't bother to scream, didn't even feel the rise of adrenaline pulsing through his soul's veins. When he finally landed back into his body, he opened his eyes and sat up straight. In his room, like always; he still had to talk to his mom about it all. But no, not now. One quick jump and he was out of bed and at his closet. His costume was folded back in the drawer, same as always. He had it on and was out the door before he even had a plan in his head. All he knew was that he had to hurry. Hannah needed him.

.


	9. Glowing Letters

Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 9

Glowing Letters

If there was one thing that Red was getting more and more pissed off about, it was the damn demons! It wasn't enough that they were so much stronger than her, oh no! Now it was like they were playing a game with her, like she was the balloon and they were the little kids trying to pop it. She'd turn around and there would be a giant spider sinking its scorpion-like tail into the crown of her head. She'd wake up completely healed, and find her body hanging upside down from the end of a demon's long, prickly tentacle. Then he'd drop her and she would fall into a mess of acid, which boiled her alive. Then she'd wake up again, just to find another monster trying to chew on what she had left behind.

"Fuck this!" she screams and she pulls the jump rope out from her belt. The teeth were grinding into her stomach, chewing on her bones, and she had to stop the tears of pain overwhelming her. She adjusted herself enough to see the beast's fish-like eye. With a strong whip, the jump rope slapped the eye with a loud "crack". The monster roared and she slipped between its jaws like jelly. With a thud and a crack of brittle-bones, she landed hard on the rocks.

The monster danced like a scratched child. One large, pinkish foot stamped closer to her, the other actually on top of her. She was dead in an instant.

And awake again, though this time she had been left alone. She laid there for a few minutes, to relax, to breathe, then stood up and looked around. The demons had scattered, obviously bored with their new toy. She sighed in relief and checked her jump rope. The handle was shattered, cracked right down the middle. She'd have to buy a new one.

Mysterion had told her to stay in the cave, but the swarm of tiny, flesh eating ants had flushed her out just after he died. She knew nowhere was safe, nowhere was painless; she'd have to keep moving, if she didn't want to die. Again.

Slowly, the girl walked past mushroom trees, coughing at the gas coming off of boiling lakes. She stared up at the sky, hoping to see the portal open, but all she saw was blood red clouds and large, atom looking things floating around. She had a sinking feeling that she was too far from the cave to see the portal, or worse, that Kenny couldn't open it after all.

But no, he promised he'd come back. She just had to give him time.

There was one thing peculiar of the place; the rocks. True, nothing here looked natural, but these rocks looked more unnatural than anything. They were like city ruins, some shaped like broken pillars, some like the stones of a pyramid, and they were scattered everywhere, buried in the chaos that she hated more and more.

She walked at least half a mile before she reached a large cavern, one too large to jump. She glances over her shoulder, at the mess she left behind, and then turned back. She couldn't go back there; something was telling her to keep moving. Survival instincts probably; despite it all, she's always been a survivor.

There were two ways to go from here; one was a slightly diagonal stone like bridge that connected one side of the cavern to the other. It looked solid enough; plenty of stone support underneath. The other way was a fallen stone pillar, with a triangle end. But it was too tall to climb, and the thing looked too aged, crumbling even as it just laid there.

Red turned to the smaller bridge. That looked the smarter way.

Red took one step, and the ground went front underneath her. Stones crashed and rumbled and she fell, fell, scraping against the cavern wall, against spikes that stuck out in all directions, her eyes useless in the darkness, her body being thrown around like a beanie baby, until it lands solidly on the ground, knocking the wind out of her.

She stands up and tests herself. A few scratches, a missing left ear, and she can't feel her left pinky finger, but all in all, she's not in the worse of shape.

Red takes a look around. She must have fallen at least a quarter of a mile; that bloody sky is too high up for her to see anything more than those weird clouds and floating atoms. The actually cavern itself is too narrow. The walls on either side of her can't be more than five feet from each other, and she's starting to feel claustrophobic.

"I fucking hate today," she mumbles as she pushes herself past fallen rocks and broken spikes. The blood spilling from her ear is starting to make her woozy, but she keeps moving. There had to be a way up somewhere.

"If I ever get out of here," Red mumbles to herself as she jumps from one rock to another, "I'm kicking my dad's ass, the cults' asses, and Kenny's ass…oh…"

Before her, the cavern opened by a few feet, and past fallen rocks and decayed demons, a room was half hidden before her. She pushes herself into it, squeezing through, and turned.

The walls were glowing.

A world away, Mysterion was jumping from roof to roof, thinking to himself on all he had to do. He still wasn't sure on how to save Hannah yet, and there were still the cultist to deal with. If what the leader had said was right, then the old gods were woken up, and that only meant even more trouble for the town of South Park.

He was going to need help.

Three boys lazily walked down the sidewalk, all in separate directions, all wearing their pajamas and looking half asleep. Mysterion waits until they stop right below him, and then jumps off of the roof he had been waiting on.

"Kenny?" Kyle asks, rubbing his left eye, "why'd you text us?"

Mysterion stares the three down. Cartmen was missing his jacket, wearing just an aqua pajama shirt with a bear's face in the middle. Stan had his jacket zipped up and fastened, but his hat was on crooked and his black hair was sticking out. And Kyle had his hat on right, but his orange jacket had been thrown on carelessly over his pajamas, and left unzipped.

Mysterion didn't feel the least bit guilty for waking them up.

"I need your guy's help," he says.

"We're not playing super hero anymore, Kenny," Cartmen snaps angrily, "you guy's killed it when you all turned evil! Alright? It's no fun anymore."

Mysterion turned to Cartmen, trying hard to keep himself calm. "I'm not playing," he says.

Stan fixes his hat. "What's going on?"

"Remember the cult of Cthulhu? They're up to something; they decided to sacrifice Hannah and I to the old gods, but I don't know why."

"Sacrifice? How?" Kyle asks.

"They sent us both to R'lyeh, where Cartmen sent us."

Cartmen's head cocks slightly. "How the hell do you keep getting out of there?" he asks under his breath.

Mysterion ignores it. "I need your guy's help; I need to open the portal and rescue Hannah before it's too late."

"No."

The three boys turn to Cartmen, who's standing with his fists down at his side.

Kyle gaps. "No? Dude, we have to save her."

"I'm not playing Kenny's stupid game. He's been blowing us off for weeks, always hanging out with that girl instead. Why the hell should I help him?"

Mysterion lost control then. In a blink he had Cartmen pinned up against the building's brick, his arm pressed against the boy's neck, and his face looking as intimidating as he can possibly manage. "Because, fat boy," he shouts, "you've never been to R'lyeh, you have no idea what it's like that; what kind of hell it is. Hannah is there, all alone, probably getting chased and eaten by demons, and you're just going to stand here and say that you're not _playing_? I should fucking kill you for that, you fat asshole!"

"Kenny, Kenny chill out," Stan says, pulling Mysterion away. Cartmen whimpers in the corner like the toddler he is. Mysterion takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down again. Then he turns back to Stan and Kyle.

"Sorry I…I just really need your guy's help on this one. We _have _to save her."

Kyle and Stan give each other one look, and then their eyes are back on Kenny, their eyebrows down and at a 'V'.

"What do you need us to do?"

There's a knock at the door, and the cult leader has to chug the last of his before he thinks to answer it. A body flies past him and slams hard into the staircase railing, and the cult leader laughs. "Watch it Ron, those lightening shocks are a doozy," he calls as he heads to the door. "Hey, guys, I think the pizza's here!"

But when he opens the door, he doesn't see the pizza man. Instead, there are three little boys there, all dressed in tuxes with various other accessories: a top hat, a monocle, a cane, and a mustache.

The cultist turns his head. "Yes?" he asks.

The fattest one does the talking. "Hell good sir, we're here looking for a VIP tour of your extraordinary cult here."

The cult priest scowls. "Get out of here, kids!" he snaps.

"Sir, I don't think you understand the special circumstance that we are in presently," the boy says, "you see…" and here, all three boys display their IPhones, with a VIP app pulled up and loaded, "we are VIPs."

The cultist takes a second to respond. "…oh! Oh well then right this way! Sorry about that."

"Quite alright," the fat boy says, and the three walk into the man's house, tucking their IPhone away.

The man takes lead of the tour. "Ok," he says as he shows them into the living room. There are cultists everywhere, all laughing and drinking, some throwing their robes around as if it's a Frat party.

"Well, as you see here, we're all just in the middle of a little party," the leader says.

"I see… and what is this party celebrating?"

"Why, the return of the old gods, of course. See we've finally found out how to release the gods of our religion, to rein darkness on the world for thousands of years."

Stan scratches at his mustache. "You mean Cthulhu."

The leader shakes his head. "No no, we gave up on Cthulhu after he was sent back to his eternal sleep; we figured we couldn't be redundant and bring _him _back. It's already been done. So these gods are different. They're part of the same religion, but they all have specific traits, and were put to an eternal rest thousands of years ago. But we've awoken them, and for doing so, they have granted us tremendous power!"

Kyle can't help but dodge his head away from their shop teacher, who's slurring his words in the corner, probably too drunk to notice his students anyhow. "Powers?" Kyle asks.

Just then, a man runs past them, his entire body on fire but he's not burning at all. The flames are black and red, and he's laughing as he runs around, half drunk and near naked.

The cult leader chuckles. "The old gods needed vessels in order to survive in this world. Unlike Cthulhu, they don't have any true forms. So we lent them our bodies, and in return, they give us god like powers."

A man suddenly falls from the ceiling. How he got up there to begin with, none of the boys had seen.

"Godlike power huh?" Cartmen muses and Kyle slaps him on the back of his head. "Don't even think about it fat boy," he whispers, "We're here to figure out what the cultists are up to, remember? So we can save Hannah."

Stan kicks his cane away. "Dude, have you noticed how emotional Kenny got about rescuing her? I've never seen him get so worked up over a girl like that."

"That's not true; remember he turned into a mindless Gray's Antony watching zombie for that one chick last year."

"Dude, that was for a blow job. Hannah is different."

Cartmen chuckles. "That's because Hannah won't put out."

The cult leader shows them to his back yard, where a number of other cultists are training with their new found powers. Some are on fire, others are floating around like ghosts, and a few are dancing lightening between their fingers.

The man smiles to himself. "Right now, we're just trying to get the hang of things, before we actually go out and take over the world and stuff," he says.

Stan, Kyle, and Cartmen all watch as the men show off their remarkable power, and the three can't help but feel a sense of dread for their town.

Downstairs, squeezing through a small window was Mysterion, landing into the cult leader's basement. The meeting's chairs had been tucked away and folded up. The punch tables were probably all up stairs, and the only thing Mysterion saw that had any connection to the meeting he had watched all those months ago, was the podium by the left wall, with an old, leather book resting on top quietly.

Mysterion took one last glance around to make sure that he really was alone, and then ran to the podium. The book was closed, and Mysterion saw the same star symbol engraved on the cover. He flips the pages open, and stars down.

He stares down at the scribble, at the symbols for words, and he cusses. This isn't even in English! None of it! Not even a translation! Mysterion is about to slam the book shut, about to throw it across the room, until something inside him stirs, and he looks at the words again. Lightly, the symbols seem to glow a light yellow, and Mysterion watches as they mix, untangle, and realign, all in his head, and suddenly he can read it, every word.

"Weird," he mumbles, flipping through the pages. Finally he lands on the one he needs. But he can't stay and read: he can hear voices coming down the basement staircase. Swiftly enough, he tears the page out of the book, slams the book shut, and scales the wall, reaching the window and out. Just in time too; two cultists have entered the basement, and they're arguing.

"Dammit Zach, I said to shut up about it all."

"But you said if I gave you Hannah…"

"You've got godlike powers, Zach, what more could you want?" the cult leader snaps. The man takes hold of the Necronomicon book and storms upstairs. Zach is left alone, half drunk, and sobbing.

Mysterion scowls and jumps back through the window, landing just in front of Zach, who jumps, startled.

"What are you doing here?" Zach asks.

Mysterion lets his rage fill him up to the brim. "They can't bring Hannah's mom back," he says flatly.

Zach hesitates. "They…they said they could."

"And you believed them."

"I…you don't understand how it is, to lose someone you're that close to. I had to do everything I could to—"

"So you sacrifice your only daughter?! The daughter that your wife DIED for?!"

Zach suddenly seemed sober again. "My wife didn't _die _for anyone. She was killed. Hannah murdered her!"

Mysterion relaxed, cooling down just enough for it to merge into his town. "Would your wife have thought so?"

Zach was speechless, and didn't say a word as Mysterion left the basement and ran off, into the night, heading to the park a few houses down. The page was tucked neatly into his pocket. He unfolded it and stared at the page. The words had gone back to normal, but as he held it, they changed again, back to English.

It was the spell he needed, the symbols he had to make out of broken glass, and even how to close the portal again. There were other spells to, but nothing on the old gods.

Maybe Stan and the others had the answers.


	10. Never Forget

Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 10

Never Forget

"What did you guys find out?" Mysterion asks, as he sprinkles the last of the broken glass onto the snow. He hadn't like having to break all of the mirrors and windows left to rot in the junk yard. It wasn't like he didn't have enough bad luck.

The three boys were just walking up, crossing through the snow and past the trees. They were staring at the ground, inspecting it. "What are you doing, Kenny?" Kyle asks.

Mysterion claps the rest of the glass off of his gloves. "It's a symbol to open the portal. What did you guys find out?" he asks again.

Stan shares a quick look between them all, his hands pushed into the pockets on his slacks. "South Park is screwed, dude. Those cultists all have powers, like a god or something."

"Powers? What kind of powers?"

"Fire, lightening, floating around, you know, all of that crap."

Mysterion scowled. "Fuck," he mumbles. He wasn't sure how to stop them. But he had to focus on Red right now.

"Ok, stand back," Mysterion says and the three boys step away. He moves to the edge of the symbol and pulls the paper out of his pocket.

Stan squints from where he was standing. "Dude, how can you even read that? It's nothing but a bunch of squiggly lines."

For some reason, Mysterion isn't surprise that they couldn't see the English translation.

"It makes sense to me," he mumbles, and slowly he starts to chant the words, hoping against everything that he was at least pronouncing everything right. With every chant, Mysterion raises his voice, higher and higher, louder and louder, until it was all anyone could hear in that half of town. At every word, the glass on the floor shivers and melts, and soon it all replaced by a large puddle of silvery liquid. Through it, Mysterion can see R'lyeh on the other side.

Mysterion tucks the page away and turns back to the boys. From his belt, he pulls out the ropes he had secured only a few hours ago, along with some extra he picked up from the junkyard.

"Ok, I need you guys to lower me down. I'll get Hannah, and then you guys can pull us up," he says as he ties the rope around him. Stan, Kyle, and Cartmen take the rope between the three of them, and Mysterion goes to the edge of the portal. Slowly, he slips in, letting the rope catch him. "Ok, go ahead," he calls up, and the boys lower him in.

The portal opened at the same place as before; from this height, he could see the cave where he left Red. He could also see demons flying around, stomping in the distance, but they ignored him well enough. When he finally landed on the ground, he untied himself and let the rope hang there, hurrying over to the cave. "Hannah," he calls but the cave is empty except for a few ants crawling around on their ant pile. Mysterion steps out of the cave and looks around.

"Dude hurry up!" Cartmen calls from above, but Mysterion ignores him and walks around. _Where is she?_

Deep in the cavern, surrounded by glowing letters, is Red, turning and reading the walls like a book. Her eyes are watering, and her mouth is hanging open. With reach line she finishes, the next is instantly translated through her eyes, swimming and morphing until they make sense. When she reaches the bottom corner of the third and last wall, she sighs. She understands it now; all of it. Everything makes sense.

A low voice echoes down to her, and after a second of hesitation, she looks up. Past the several feet of rock and spikes, blurred by the distance, is a shadow she has come to recognize.

"Down here," she calls up hoarsely, and Mysterion moves to get a better look.

"Are you ok?" he asks.

Well no, she isn't, and it's not just because her ear has gone almost completely deaf now, though that is getting annoying.

"Give me a second," she calls back, and she reaches to grab a nearby snapped spike from between some fallen stones. Without even flinching, she slides the sharper end across her neck. The bleeding out was no more pain that she had felt before, and she waited patiently for death.

The gentle flow to Heaven wasn't as long as usual, and she spent the entire time brooding, even on the fall back. When she takes in her first breath of life and opens her eyes, Mysterion is standing over her, waiting patiently at the bottom of the cavern. "Better?" he asks her as he lends her a hand to help her up. She feels her ear, finding it completely in tack. "Yeah," she mumbles.

Mysterion glances over her shoulder, his mouth dropping ever so slightly. "What is this place?" He moves past her and stop in front of the middle wall.

Red goes to his side. "It's the first copy of the Necronomicon," she says lightly, "the entire book, it's all here. The spells, the prophecies; Kenny, it even talks about us."

"Where?"

She points to the left wall, at the bottom right corner where some words are half hidden by scraped fungus. She knew he didn't need her to translate, but she did anyways.

"It talks about people who are blessed by Cthulhu; how they can be blessed, how valuable they are; it if explains why we can read all of this, and why R'lyeh feels so familiar to us."

Mysterion reads a few words. "Because part of our souls are from here…"

"Exactly. I think it's that soul that is keeping us from dying. But it doesn't talk about that."

A text tone goes off. Mysterion pulls his phone out of his pocket. "C'mon," he says after reading it, "we need to hurry."

In order to get to her, Mysterion had to have constructed his own make-shift rope out of sturdy vines and a demon's tentacle, all that he scavenged from the top. Red watches as he tugs the rope a few times for assurance, then scurries up the cavern wall. Red takes hold of the rope, but gives the scripts behind her one last look before following.

"Kyle said the cultists are wrecking the city," Mysterion says over his shoulder as the two sprint to a dangling rope, hanging from beyond a floating portal above. Mysterion grabs the rope and ties it around his waist in a triple knot. Then, he pulls Red into his left arm, and with his right he tugs their life support. Slowly, the two lift off from the ground.

Kyle, Stan, and Cartmen all heave one last time, and then collapse onto the snow. Mysterion and Red roll out of the portal and Mysterion pulls the notes out of his pocket, chanting the words under his breath as quickly as he can manage.

An explosion engulfs the road just behind them and the boys are all up in half an exasperated heartbeat. "Holy shit!" Kyle calls and they run to the road, Mysterion catching up just as the portal closes.

Chaos isn't new to any of them, but what the five saw just then was bricking on the edge of insanity. Flames are engulfing all of the nearby stores; Lightening weaves through telephone lines and cars. Creatures that Red thought she had left behind at the close of the portal, were now all tearing at the helicopters overhead. Bodies were scattered everywhere, some just wounded, but most burned alive or half eaten.

A cultist flies over the children, laughing like a mad man. When he sees them, he opens his grinning mouth, and out flies a swarm of wasps and bees.

"Run!" Stan screams. They all split up; Kyle and Stan spring down to the right, only to get separated by a smoke like demon trying to swallow them whole. Cartmen goes straight, hobbling to the Hobby Lobby ahead, trying to outrun a skeleton-like creature that is shooting flames at his rump. And Mysterion grabs Red's hand, and the two are sprinting to the left.

A car skims over the immortals' heads and explodes just as it crushes into a building. A demon rises out of the smoke, its millions of eyes locked on the fifth graders. It laughs and takes a powerful jump. Mysterion grabs Red's hand, pulling her to their right, into the alley they had first met in all of those weeks ago. The monster lands with an earth quacking crunch just outside, chuckles, and leaps away again.

"Shit," Mysterion says to himself. "We have to find a way to stop this!"

Red takes a deep breath, her eyes closed as the adrenaline escapes her system.

"I know how," she says meekly.

Mysterion turns to her. "You do? How?

Red bites her lip. "I read it on that wall; the instructions, on how to bring the old gods back."

"Yeah?"

"Well, to awaken them, you have to banish one immortal to R'lyeh, and to release them, you have to banish two."

"And how do we stop them?"

Red's eyes find his and she frowns. "To stop them, an immortal must sacrifice another immortal."

Mysterion takes a second to register what she's saying. "Sacrifice…?"

"Kill. An immortal has to kill another immortal. Kenny, you have to kill me."

"What?!" he shouts and his eyes are so wide that they're practically bulging out of his mask, "No!"

"It's the only way we can stop them," Red insists. Beyond them, another explosion takes out the local bar, and glass is thrown everywhere.

Mysterion uses his cape as a shield. "I'm not killing you, Hannah," he says to her roughly.

"Why not?!"

"I'm just not."

"If it's the only way to save them—"

"If I kill you, you'd die for good!"

Red relaxes her fists..

Mysterion sighs. "Only an immortal can kill another immortal. If…if I do this…you'll never come back."

Her eyebrows go up and her eyes cast down. "I didn't know you knew about that," she whispers.

"I didn't want to bring it up." Mysterion ignores the sparks raining down on him from a close shot lightening bold.

Red shakes her head. "But if you don't…"

"Then you kill me," he whispers, "kill me, and they'll all be sent away. Everything will go back to normal."

There's a long pause; a long thread of silence. And then:

"No. I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because…because you have more to live for, Kenny."

This, he wasn't prepared for. He was ready for her to argue that she was ready to be free of the curse, that she was ready to die and stay dead. Hell, that would have been his argument, if the tables were turned. But this, he wasn't sure where it was leading to.

Red takes a deep breath. "You have more to live for. Think about it; if I kill you, then I'll have lost you forever. You're my only friend. I already lost my mom, and after this, I wouldn't go back to my dad anyhow. I have no family, and without you, I have no friends. But you…you have friends. Stan, and Kyle…"

"They never cared about me dying before."

"Because it's never been permanent before. But this time it would be, and they would miss you. And even if they didn't, what about your family? You're dad, your mom?"

"They wouldn't care."

Red starts to get desperate. She decides to go for her trump card.

"What about Karen?" she asks.

Mysterion doesn't answer, he doesn't even move. His breath is cut right from his lungs.

Red presses on. "She still needs her Guardian Angel, Ken; she needs her big brother to protect her. She needs you."

Still no response.

"Kenny…please. Let me do this."

Mysterion shuts his eyes, trying to clear his head. Behind him are only more explosions, more laughter, more chaos. He knows none of it will end – that it'll only get worse – unless he does this one, simple thing.

Red had a right to decide how she wanted to go, he knew that much.

"Ok," he says quietly.

She wanted it done at their clubhouse, buried in the woods. The entire run/walk back, they had held hands, but hadn't said a word. When they got there – all too soon, for Mysterion's tastes – she goes inside and comes out wearing the amulet they had confiscated days ago. With the symbol around her neck, they knew that this would work.

"Are you ok?" she asks lightly as she pulls her hair down from its bun, letting the curls fall down to her shoulders. She said she preferred to go out as Hannah this time, not Red, which was why she was removing her mask, and her gloves.

He doesn't say anything. Can't say anything. Rather, he reaches up to his hood, slowly lifting it and the mask underneath. His messy blond hair falls down over his face, and his eyes blinks away revealing tears.

If this is the last time he sees her, he rather be Kenny than Mysterion.

Without any warning, he pulls Hannah closer to him, and presses his lips against hers. She hesitates, shocked, but then leans into him, her head turning to the side just the bit, and a wave of electricity washes through them both.

But all too soon, Hannah pulls away. She stares Kenny in the eyes, inspecting his frown.

She presses her hands into his and gives him a smirk. "Don't worry," she says with a laugh, "It's not like I haven't done this before."

Kenny tries to smile for her, and he just barely manages it. "Ready?" he's able to say.

Hannah steps a few feet away, cupping the amulet in her right hand.

"Give it your best shot," she says.

She winks, and he shoots.

The town was busy cleaning up the damages, like so many times before. The school had survived for the most part, but Tom's Rhinoplasty had been demolished and most of the mall was in ruins.

Three little boys, all dressed in their winter jackets and hats, pass the consistent flow of garbage trucks, ambulances, and police tape, heading to the basketball court not too far away. As they go, Kyle points at a figure on their left, and they all stop for just a second before approaching a little boy in an orange parka.

"Kenny…," Stan starts, "we're heading to the park to play some basketball. Want to come with?"

There's no response. The boy just stands there, face turned away and hidden by his hood.

Cartmen takes a shot at it. "We need even teams, Ken. Come hang out."

No, not even a mumble.

Kyle glances at the other two. "Well…if you need us, you know where we are," he says and the three walk away, mumbling to each other about how the boy just needs time alone right now.

Feeling unusually cold in his jacket, Kenny stands with his watery eyes locked on the tombstone before him. HE reads the words again, one last time, and feels a familiar wave of numbness overwhelm him, just before his strength abandons him and he falls to his knees, sobbing into the snow.

According to the news that week, twenty seven people had been killed during the attack. One of the reported deaths was a Zachary Richardson. According to witnesses, the man was last seen begging at the cult leader's feet for Eliza's resurrection. In aggravation, the cult leader burned Zach alive.

All of the cultists had been arrested, charged for several counts of murder, and given life in prison, with no chance of bail.

As for Hannah, her death was a mystery to the police department. They knew someone had shot her, but they couldn't match the bullet, and had no leads as to whom. With no living relatives to push the case farther, the police chief let the entire thing go cold, and the accepted excuse of her passing was that she had been a causality in all of the mess that had happened.

But Kenny McCormick knew the truth. And he was never going to forget it.


End file.
